Smooth-jazz saxophonist Pamela Williams’ latest outing, The Perfect Love (Shanachie), can best be described as lyrical and upbeat, with more than a dash of zest. Three tracks on the album were composed or cowritten by Williams’ labelmate, saxophonist Kim Waters, including the bright, smooth “Unconditional” and “A Bee Charmer.” Keyboardist Kevin Toney cowrote a track called “Twin Souls,” although he doesn’t play on it-saxophonist David Mann does the keyboard honors, and he doubles Williams’ sax melody, which shifts from spiky and staccato to smooth and haunting. Williams certainly knows how to put a charge into a tune, and she gets funky over a dance groove on “Got Me Wrapped Around Your Finger,” and she infuses her rousing, horn-punctuated version of Prince’s “Sexy MF” with plenty of spice. The Perfect Love is a solid outing that will both brighten your day and get you moving.
Originally PublishedRelated Posts
Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee: Backwater Blues
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Jonathan Butler: The Simple Life
Jonathan Butler’s optimistic music belies a dirt-poor childhood growing up in a South Africa segregated by apartheid. Live in South Africa, a new CD and DVD package, presents a sense of the resulting inner turmoil, mixed with dogged resolve, that paved the way to his status as an icon in his country and successful musician outside of it. Looking back, the 46-year-old Butler says today, the driving forces that led to his overcoming apartheid-the formal policy of racial separation and economic discrimination finally dismantled in 1993-were family, faith and abundant talent.
“When we were kids, our parents never talked about the ANC [African National Congress] or Nelson Mandela,” he says. Butler was raised as the youngest child in a large family. They lived in a house patched together by corrugated tin and cardboard, in the “coloreds only” township of Athlone near Cape Town. “They never talked about struggles so we never knew what was happening.”
Start Your Free Trial to Continue Reading
Become a JazzTimes member to explore our complete archive of interviews, profiles, columns, and reviews written by music’s best journalists and critics.
Scott LaFaro
Previously unavailable recordings and a new bio illuminate the legend of bassist Scott LaFaro
Kurt Elling: Man in the Air
Nate Chinen makes the argument that Kurt Elling is the most influential jazz vocalist of our time